Canadian Lawyer

44 M A R C H 2 0 1 9 w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m S ince the federal government's Cannabis Act was passed into law in October, which legalized the recreational use of cannabis, the gold rush of activity in the sector has only intensified. With that, of course, has come a greater call on the services of the bar, with an "unprecedented" number of legal areas engaged by the change in cannabis law in Canada. "Just like any other sectors, we realized there are real estate, tax components, IP, licensing, branding components, all these areas of law that we traditionally service, now servicing one more sector: cannabis," says Morris Szwimer, who has a commercial law practice with Spiegel Sohmer Inc. in Montreal. This led firms to "concentrate our efforts on this new area. If you look around, law firms big or small, everyone has their toe in the water in some respect." As for activity, "It's basically a gold rush," says Trevor McCann, an insur- ance and professional liability partner in Clyde & Co. in Montreal. "You've got huge market demand and shortfalls. There are new, lucrative opportunities. You have largely capitalized companies and small players interested in getting in on the action, hoping to be bought up." Cannabis companies on Canadian stock exchanges reportedly raised $1.4 billion in equi- ty in the first quarter of 2018 alone. Szwimer agrees that the growth is unprecedented. "When you look at the business, it's . . . like any other, but this is the first time we've seen an area of law to come out of nowhere. It took law firms by surprise." What industry and law firms are grappling with for the first time, too, is that "we've never brought a product out of the Controlled Sub- stances Act and made it completely available," says David Wood, co-chairman of the Bor- den Ladner Gervais Cannabis Industry Focus Group, based in Calgary. "It's unprecedented." Kirk Tousaw, of Tousaw Law Corporation in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C., has made a career advocating on behalf of medical can- nabis patients and providers. As a crusading lawyer in the fight for cannabis use, he says he never thought he'd see big firms with cannabis practices. Yet, today in the sector, "you've got everything from standard breach of contracts to civil litigation, raising money and IPOs." When he organized a conference on cannabis in B.C. Now that cannabis is legal, the demand for legal services has not abated By Elizabeth Raymer THE GREEN GOLD RUSH E M E R G I N G P R A C T I C E A R E A : C A N N A B I S L E G A L R E P O R T SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT

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